Amazonian Visions: Animating Ghosts by Gustavo Cerquera Benjumea A thesis supporting paper ...

42 Pages·2013·11.65 MB·English

by  Gustavo Cerquera Benjumea

Amazonian Visions: Animating Ghosts
by
Gustavo Cerquera Benjumea

A thesis supporting paper presented to the Ontario College of Art & Design University in
partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
degree of Master of Fine Arts in the
Interdisciplinary Master’s in Art, Media and Design Program

100 McCaul St. Toronto, Ontario, M5T 1W1, Canada, May 9th, 2013

© Gustavo Cerquera Benjumea 2013
Author’s Declaration

I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis,
including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners.

I authorize the Ontario College of Art & Design to lend this thesis to other institutions or
individuals for the purpose of scholarly research.

I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public. I further
authorize the Ontario College of Art & Design to reproduce this thesis by photocopying
or by other means, in total or in part, at the request of other institutions or individuals for
the purpose of scholarly research.

Signature __________________________________________________

  ii
Amazonian Visions: Animating Ghosts
Master of Fine Art, 2013
Gustavo Cerquera Benjumea
Interdisciplinary Master’s in Art, Media and Design
OCAD University

Abstract

Amazonian Visions is a practice-based research project that finds associations
between the concepts of expanded cinema and animation, and the myriad worlds of the
Amazonian psychedelic brew, ayahuasca. I argue that expanded animation is a medium
not unlike cultural practices of expanded vision and psychedelic experiences inspired by
ayahuasca. By juxtaposing these two concepts, tracing their genealogies, and examining
unexpected links between the two, I propose that both are techniques that allow the
fantastical to enter the ordinary. This theoretical framework informs my expanded
animation work, in particular the shows Tranquilandia and Tres Esquinas, where the
histories of the Colombian Amazon are transformed through ayahuasca visions into
digital animations and immersive installations.

  iii
Acknowledgements

I want to start by thanking my principal advisor, Philippe Blanchard, as well as my
secondary advisor, Luke Painter, for their support and guidance. I also want to thank my
fellow IAMD graduate students who made these past two years a great experience. I
would like to thank the IAMD program director, Dr. Barbara Rauch, for her support of
my graduate research, as well as the faculty and staff involved in this program. Thanks to
Camilla Singh and Jean-Paul Kelly, my external examiners. Finally I want to give a
special thanks to my family and to Mark Aikman.

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Table of Contents

Author’s Declaration……………………………………………………………………....ii
Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iii
Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iv
List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………….vi
Preface…………………………………………………………………………………......7
Chapter I: Introduction…………………………………………………………………….8
I. Context: The Amazon and Ayahuasca……...……………………………..8
II. Expanded Animation and Cinema………………………………………..11

Chapter 2: Literature Review…………………………………………………………….13
Chapter 3: Development of Tranquilandia…….…………………...……………………25
I. Research Questions…………………………………………………………….25
II. Methodology…………………………………………………………………..25
III. Research and Creation………………...…….………………………………..28
Little Islands………………………………………………………………… 29
Space and Movement……...……………………………………………….....30
Tres Esquinas…………………………………………………………………31
Tranquilandia…...………………………………………………………….....33
The Animation …………………...…………………………………………...35
IV. Ethical Considerations…..…………………………………………………...37
Chapter 4: Conclusion……………………………………………………………………38
Works Cited ……………………………………………………………………………...39

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List of Figures

Figure 1. Pablo Amaringo’s Ondas de la Ayahuasca p.17
Figure 2. Little Islands p.29
Figure 3. Tres Esquinas p.32
Figure 4. Tranquilandia p.34
Figure 5. Tranquilandia Animation p.36

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Preface
I was born in Bogotá, Colombia during the 1980s, a particularly violent decade in
the country’s history, when drug lords like Pablo Escobar wielded control over all aspects
of everyday life. My family hails from the Amazonian region of Caquetá, a land with a
troubled history and where the Colombian conflict is magnified, sometimes spiraling out
of control. The region’s impenetrable jungles, far from the reach of the central
government, provide the perfect hiding spot for guerrillas, paramilitaries, and coca
plantations. As a child and teenager, I visited my extended family every summer in
Florencia, the capital of Caquetá. Florencia is a small town at the edge of the forest that
seemed as far away as possible from the cold and sprawling city I called home. Florencia
is a town at a crossroads, where indigenous and mestizo1 cultures coexist surrounded by
violence. During these summers I became fascinated with a landscape and a culture I
couldn’t fully call mine. A pivotal moment took place when an uncle gave me a small art
book on the hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca, after a trip to the Putumayo. This book
spurred a lasting interest in the field of ethnobotany2 and led me to read Richard Evans
Schultes’ seminal work on hallucinogenic plants, Plants of the Gods (2001), as well as
One River (1996) and The Serpent and the Rainbow (1985) by ethnobotanist Wade Davis.
I considered pursuing a career in the field but these plans were put on a hold due to an
escalation in the Colombian conflict that forced my family to migrate to Canada in 2002.
While in Canada, my interests shifted towards animation and art, but I never forgot my

1
 Coined
 after
 the
 conquest
 of
 Latin
 America,
 mestizo
 designates
 mixed
 race
 people
 with
 indigenous

and
 European
 ancestry.
 The
 mestizo
 constitute
 Colombia’s
 demographic
 majority.

2
 Ethnobotany
 is
 the
 study
 of
 plants
 that
 have
 cultural
 significance
 as
 medicine
 or
 hallucinogens.
ethnobotanical impulse. This interdisciplinary project is a way to reconcile and find
unexpected commonalities between these two seemingly different fields of knowledge.

Chapter 1: Introduction
“ [Through animation] a boundary is violated; a passage between worlds takes place.” (5)
Bukatman, 2012
The following study is designed to assess the links between expanded animation
and the otherworldly landscapes of ayahuasca within the context of the Colombian and
Peruvian Amazon. Through immersive installations, I investigate indigenous and mestizo
art that find a central source of visual inspiration in ayahuasca, a compound
hallucinogenic potion that triggers episodic experiences of altered perception. At the same
time I find conceptual links to the history of animation and expanded cinema, which I
consider a continuation of magical thinking. I argue that animation and the visionary
experiences produced by hallucinogenic plants can be interpreted as ruptures between
worlds, allowing the fantastical to creep into the real. My aim is to use digital animation
and installation as a way to bridge the gaps between these two realms.

I. Context: The Amazon and Ayahausca
The Amazon is the largest rainforest and one of the most bio-diverse ecosystems
on the planet. It is a maze of exuberant life and death, with dangers that are as real as they
are imagined. Inhabited by various peoples over thousands of years, the rainforest
abounds with myth and history. Today hundreds of indigenous groups, mestizos, and

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colonists make it their home while industrialization continues to encroach on its borders.
The Amazon has stirred the imagination of European explorers and colonizers, and
challenged whoever dared to brave its perilous immensity. Spanish, Portuguese, and
British people and companies have explored it in search of wealth, land, and natural
resources. Some explorers were driven by legends of lost civilizations, such as the British
adventurer Percy Fawcett, who famously disappeared searching for the mythical Lost
City of Z in the early 20th century3. To this day, scientists continue to explore the region
anxious to encounter new species and eager to chart the forests’ teeming reserves of life.
The discovery of the rubber tree in the 19th century and the technological innovations it
generated4 put this resource in high demand, resulting in rapid industrialization and an
intense need for large amounts of cheap labour in a relatively uninhabited region (Taussig
1984: 9). The results of these incursions have been catastrophic. The rubber boom and the
violence it produced during the late 19th and early 20th centuries remain a dark chapter in
the history of the continent.
Today illegal cocaine production keeps the region entangled in a destructive and
horrific war on drugs. My thesis exhibition entitled Tranquilandia translates to
“Tranquility-land”. The ironically named Tranquilandia was a large cocaine processing
facility within the jungles of Caquetá. It had eight illegal landing strips serving nineteen
laboratories and estimates put the value of its total cocaine production in the billions of
dollars (Reyes 2007). In 1984 with the help of the US Drug Enforcement Administration

3
 David
 Grann’s
 non-­‐fiction
 book
 The
 Lost
 City
 of
 Z:
 A
 Tale
 of
 Deadly
 Obsession
 in
 the
 Amazon
 (2010)

gives
 an
 account
 of
 Fawcett’s
 journey.

4
 Rubber
 is
 the
 main
 component
 of
 car
 and
 plane
 tires.

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(DEA) the Colombian army raided Tranquilandia and burned it to the ground5.
Despite the Amazon being an inhospitable region and its history of violence, it is a
dynamic and prolific locus of cultural production. I am particularly interested in
Amazonian artists that use ayahuasca as inspiration for cultural artifacts and practices.
Ayahuasca is a psychedelic brew known for its powerful psychotropic visions and intense
physical effects. The ambiguous visions produced by the brew can slip between the
beautiful and the nightmarish. Ayahuasca is a drink for visual revelation; producing what
Australian anthropologist Michael Taussig calls the “hallucinatory art of the real” (1991:
329). Ayahuasca visions act like dreams – reorganizing personal and cultural experiences
through fantasy. Amazonian indigenous groups have used ayahuasca historically and it is
an important part of their mythologies, music, and visual arts. For Amazonian mestizos –
whose syncretic culture is a product of both indigenous civilization and European
colonization –ayahuasca also plays an important role in their cultural production. The
work of Pablo Amaringo, a vegetalista6-­‐turned-painter, whose life and artistic practice
have been documented in detail by Colombian anthropologist Luis Eduardo Luna (1999),
informs much of this project.

5
 The
 raid
 of
 Tranquilandia
 was
 a
 much-­‐publicized
 event
 in
 Colombia.
 In
 many
 ways
 it
 revealed
 the

true
 scale
 of
 drug
 production
 of
 the
 country
 and
 the
 amount
 of
 power
 drug-­‐lords
 had.

6
 Vegetalistas
 are
 practitioners
 of
 vegetalismo,
 an
 Amazonian
 syncretic
 healing
 practice.
 Ayahuasca

mestizo
 use
 is
 not
 only
 found
 in
 vegetalismo.
 There
 are
 two
 syncretic
 Brazilian
 Catholic
 churches

(Santo
 Daime
 and
 União
 do
 Vegetal)
 that
 use
 ayahuasca
 as
 their
 main
 sacrament.

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